Typhon

Reconciling Biblical "facts" with demonstrable science.

How do fundamentalist Christians, who believe that the Bible is the literal and factual truth handed down intact by their god, deal with the many and glaring mistakes it makes about some of the simplest "known facts" about the world?

The Bible gets things SO wrong, SO often, I'd be blushing all the time if I were a Christian.

It claims you survive for three days without oxygen, that bats are birds, that insects have four feet, that goats can produce striped kids by putting striped branches in their water, that clouds are caused by god's feet, that stars are tiny and can fall to the ground like figs, that the world is flat, and all sorts of similar, utterly WRONG statements about the world.

For a humorous (but completely factual, unfortunately) view of this check out the answers at our favorite parody site, Landover Baptist.

<a href="http://www.landoverbaptist.org/news0402/biblefactanswers.html" target="_blank">http://www.landoverbaptist.org/news0402/biblefactanswers.html</a>

<a href="http://www.landoverbaptist.org/news0101/answers.html" target="_blank">http://www.landoverbaptist.org/news0101/answers.html</a>

<a href="http://www.landoverbaptist.org/quizlist.html" target="_blank">http://www.landoverbaptist.org/quizlist.html</a>

Like I said, it would be funny, if not for the fact that Christians still claim that the Bible is unabashed, literal fact.

I really don't know how they can do it, but I guess that's what blind faith and lots of denial is good for…

.T.

[ April 23, 2002: Message edited by: Typhon ]</p>

Joe Nobody

1. The Bible is the inerrant and infallible word of God. Use it as an authoritative guide to life.

2. The Bible is errant and fallible. It does not reflect reality by any means. Throw it out.

Neither one nor two give good advice in my opinion.

How many Christians believe they can hold their breath for 3 days? How many Christians toay believe all insects have four feet? How many Christians believe the world is flat? The problem here is any discrepancy can be harmonized with a little imagination. But the harmonizations tend to get ridiculous.

Would you be so kind as to provide the verses so that those of us unfamiliar with the exact passages can look them up?

Joe Nobody

SmashingIdols

I took the quizzes, and passed with flying colors. The best one was from the WWBD site, what a riot !

I was going to bring up Solomon's BBQ on another thread, but never go around to it. I was glad to see the question on landover under the God Killing test!

Good thing they had built those huge brass seas inside the temple for all the blood! Even if you had only 1 gallon per sheep and 2 gallons per oxen, it would have been a couple hundred thousand gallons of blood. Just imagine a hundred thousand sheep bodies hung on flesh hooks? Pretty "Holy" place huh? Just the kind of place you would want to take your kids...

I pointed out this Joyous Dedication to a vegetarian I know (actually a significant vegetarian author) who was telling me how the bible is vegetarian. He said - "Yeah, but did they eat it?" I said "Of course" he said "How do you know? Were you there?"

B. H. Manners

The problem is that very few Christians take the time to read and study their Bibles. They are naive about a lot of things and just follow what their "pastor" or "elder" told them about the bible.

Typhon

Joe Nobody,

Just follow the links I sent, they include the directly quoted verses...

My secondary point is: If the Bible is clearly NOT inerrant and 100% factual in some areas, how can Christians feel confident that it is right, at all, anywhere.

Perhaps it doesn't really matter if Noah could gather all the animal species into his Ark in a single day to modern day Christians. But it does matter, I suppose, if the Bible is just as "wrong" about the deification of Christ for example, or his supposed sacrifice and rebirth.

I of course, have no problem reconciling the many obvious errors in the Bible, as I know that the Bible is purely a work of fiction.

.T.

Joe Nobody

I suppose some would come back with an analogy like this:

If an encyclopedia is clearly not inerrant and 100% factual in some areas, how can readers feel confident that it is right, at all, anywhere.

Maybe some can think Luke was a good historian and trust Luke-Acts but deny the historicity of the Penteauch? Then again, some might feel the Bible is inerrant in regards to only faith and doctrine.

Personally, I have to reject the "all or nothing" idea myself. Its not logical to me.

Joe Nobody

Toto

Well, Joe, if I start to find errors in an encyclopaedia, it does tend to discredit it as a source of authority.

How exactly do you decide what you accept in the Bible and what you reject?

Joe Nobody

Since when are encyclopedias a source of authority to begin with? They offer brief articles on sometimes complicated subjects don't they? But I think overall we generally accept the majority of the material as factual. The newer the better. Some might posit a progressive revelation in the Bible/or in history of God and claim the newer stuff is better in that as well. So that would fly in the face of the "all or nothing" charge as well.

I have a black hole book by Kip S. Thorn. Its around 500 pages. It was written in 93. Some of it is outdated by now. Most of it, however, is still valid.

That can be pretty complicated. But its a compilation of human works authored by men revealing their beliefs about God. Some claim direct interaction so that aspect needs to be treated as well. Some might dismiss these accounts a priori along with all the other various supernatural accounts and stories of this nature we have seen throughout history. I think the first thing to do is interpret it correctly (or at least try). If you don't know what the text is saying or its purpose you can only reject/accept a caricature of it. I think applying the historical-critical method is best. A pretty basic definition of what it does:

"The historical-critical method seeks to interpret a text in view of lexical, grammatical, syntactical, comparative lexical, author-related, literary, comparative religious, secular historical, and other factors or to see the text, as far as possible, in light of its total context and situation." Garrett, Sys Theo p147"

I'd also look at all the other contemporary texts from the time period of the book/books you are reading. This is an obvious notion to those who reject canonization. This literature is no more valid by default than any other. A book is valid and only valid if there is sufficient evidence validating it. As I have said, I believe some scholars deny the historicity of the Penteauch. Obviously not fundamentalist or evangelical Christians.

I'd think one would want to apply the various Biblical criticisms to the text in question as well.

Joe Nobody

[ April 24, 2002: Message edited by: Joe Nobody ]</p>

scumble

What we might be forgetting is that many Christians are exercising discretion in their reading of the Bible. I don't think you can say there's a "method" to finding out what is useful in the Bible or not. If any of us find sense in the Bible, it's because it contains certain elements of human experience that haven't changed in the last few millenia.
On that score, the Bible is no more or less useful than any other story that tries to demonstrate something.

[ April 24, 2002: Message edited by: scumble ]</p>

braces_for_impact

The key word is interpretation. Fundamentalist can claim to believe in the inerrant bible as the literal word of god because when you find an error, all it takes is a little creative interpretation and WHAMMO! No more problems. it's all about decieving yourself really. I myself fail to see how one can do so for too long before realizing it. The truly sad part however is that those who are good at lying to themselves are the same people who constantly push religion as the only moral way to live life.